Lennon aided IRA, claims MI5 renegade

The long controversy over John Lennon's political affiliations took an extraordinary new twist last night when it was revealed that the British intelligence services believe the late Beatle secretly helped to fund the IRA.

The suggestion that MI5 documents contained references to Lennon giving money to the terrorists was made by former intelligence officer David Shayler.

The disclosure was greeted with dismay by some people who knew Lennon. They believe that, as a pacifist, he would not have contributed.

The documents are believed to refer to Lennon's involvement with the radical Left in Britain.

Professor Jon Wiener of the University of California has been demanding the release of the FBI's dossier on the former Beatle since the musician's death in 1980.

Correspondence between the FBI and the British Government about Lennon's political activities in the late Sixties and early Seventies, is are among documents now set to be made public following a lengthy US court battle.

In a statement seen by The Observer, Shayler says he was shown the files by a colleague in 1993. They concerned Lennon's support for the Trotskyist Workers' Revolutionary Party, whose leading lights included the actress Vanessa Redgrave.

An MI5 source inside the WRP said Lennon contributed tens of thousands of pounds to that cause. At the same time, according to the MI5 documents, Lennon was giving money to the IRA.

Asked whether Lennon made contributions to the IRA, a spokesman for Sinn Fein, its political wing, said: 'It is not unbelievable.' Lennon backed the civil rights movement and joined Troops Out marches in Britain and the US.

In reponse to Bloody Sunday in January 1972, when British troops fired on civil rights demonstrators in Londonderry, Lennon said he would rather side with the IRA than the Army. That year he wrote the song 'The Luck of the Irish' dedicated to the victims. It contained the lyrics: 'If you have the luck of the Irish, you'd wish you were English instead.'

Beatles biographer Hunter Davies said last night: 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if he gave money to the IRA. John liked stirring it up.'